Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

God does not need your book. Your testimony is not anointed in such a way that souls are waiting upon its publication in order to be saved. Your book is not the instrument upon which God depends. The Lord is not restrained, as though He must wait for you to write before He can act. That notion is not humility. It is a subtle elevation of self.

God has already given His Word. He has spoken fully and finally in Scripture, and He has made plain the means by which He saves. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The Spirit of God works through the faithful proclamation of the Gospel, not through the elevation of personal experiences.

It should be humbling to recognize this, especially in a time when many are continually told how great they are, how significant their calling is, and how many souls are waiting for their step of faith in writing a book. Such language does not magnify God’s sufficiency. It diminishes it. To suggest that souls are dependent upon your testimony being written and published is to undermine both the power of the Word and the sovereignty of the Spirit in regeneration.

This helps explain why so many books are being produced. Many sitting under weak or misguided teaching are led to believe that their experiences must be shared as authoritative or necessary for the salvation of souls. But that claim, in itself, is an attack upon the sufficiency of Scripture and the Gospel. God does not need supplementation. His Word is not lacking. The Gospel is not powerless!

There is nothing inherently wrong with books. Faithful theological works have long served the church well. I gladly commend those that labor to explain and rightly handle Scripture. But that is not what fills many so-called Christian shelves today. What is popular is often subjective rather than objective, rooted in personal encounters, unverifiable claims, and supposed revelations that claim divine origin rather than faithful works that demonstrate a life governed by scripture as one writes in order to help men understand what God has truly said. Men would rather exegete their heart, their experiences, or their claims of what God said to them than going into the text and doing the real work of bringing out of the text what it really says and means.

Why is this so widely embraced? Because Scripture is true. Men are naturally drawn to what appeals to the flesh, what gives immediate gratification and feels personal, what promises insight apart from the hard work of rightly dividing the Word. They prefer what affirms their desires over what confronts their sin. But the faithful teacher does not lead others to himself or to his experiences. He leads them to Scripture and demonstrates its sufficiency.

If you are considering writing a book, it is worth sober self-examination. Many are encouraged to write who are not grounded in sound doctrine, and the result is confusion rather than clarity. Experiences may be sincere, but sincerity does not guarantee truth. Theology that is shallow or unsound will not help the reader. It will mislead.

And if correction comes, as it should when error is made public, the response will reveal much. If you publish a book that you feel like must be written because souls are depending on it, and your claims, teachings, and handling of scripture is shown false, you may get away with it because your book doesn’t sell well. That it does not have men of sound doctrine reading it and calling out its errors is actually not good for you. Such rebuke would have been for your good. Those who prize truth will warn you. Those who do not will applaud you.

As one who has been there, who has repented of it, and no longer endorses the book once written, consider this carefully before proceeding. We will give an account for every careless word. The world will not suffer for lack of your book. If you believe otherwise, that belief itself should give you pause.

Many who write desire to be helpful, yet the issue often lies beneath that desire. When a man begins to think that the church or the lost need his book, or that God has given him something the church cannot do without, he has already stepped beyond what is written. That is not a small error. It strikes at the sufficiency of Scripture and the ordinary means God has ordained. It is pride though deceived he cannot see his own pride.

Those who should write a book are far fewer than those who do. If what is sound were more desired, there would be fewer books, but they would carry greater weight for the soul. As it stands, publishing has become far too easy, and for that very reason, much is produced that ought not to be.

This may sound severe, but it is better to speak plainly now than to contribute to confusion later. Think seriously. Pray rightly. Examine whether what you are offering is rooted in the Word of God or in personal experience. The church does not need more subjective, shallow works filled with theological error.

Friend, you likely should not write a book. Many will. Few should.